Tuesday 18 June 2019

Another climate change threat: More 'flesh-eating' bacteria?

(HealthDay)—A flesh-eating bacteria has migrated into the Delaware Bay between Delaware and New Jersey, drawn north by the warmer waters of climate change, doctors say.

* This article was originally published here

Witnessing uncivil behavior

Suppose you're at a nice restaurant celebrating your anniversary. When a customer at a nearby table complains that it's taking too long to get his meal, you and your spouse overhear the server's brusque response. Would the server's behavior prompt you to leave a smaller tip for your own meal?

* This article was originally published here

Scientists studying how large-scale environmental disruptions affected ancient societies

John Day, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in LSU's College of the Coast & Environment, has collaborated on a new analysis of societal development with Joel Gunn of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, William Folan of the Universidad Autonoma de Campeche in Mexico, and Matthew Moerschbaecher of the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office. Gunn and Folan are Mayan archaeologists and Moerschbaecher is a graduate of LSU's oceanography program. They report that over the past 10,000 years humanity has experienced a number of foundational transitions, or "bottlenecks." During these periods of transition, the advance or decline of societies was related to energy availability in the form of a benign climate and other factors.

* This article was originally published here

Comcast remote lets people with physical disabilities control the TV with their eyes

Most TV viewers take for granted the ability to change the channel from their couches with a remote control. That task may be near impossible for viewers with the most severe physical challenges.

* This article was originally published here

The whisper of schizophrenia: Machine learning finds 'sound' words predict psychosis

A machine-learning method discovered a hidden clue in people's language predictive of the later emergence of psychosis—the frequent use of words associated with sound. A paper published by the journal npj Schizophrenia published the findings by scientists at Emory University and Harvard University.

* This article was originally published here

Women's awareness of alcohol's role in breast cancer risk is poor

Women's awareness of alcohol's role in boosting breast cancer risk is poor, indicates research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

* This article was originally published here

Skinflow: A soft robotic skin based on liquid transmission

Researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and the University of Bristol have recently developed a new soft robotic skin-like sensor that is based on fluidic transmission. This sensor, presented at the second IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft), could have interesting applications in a variety of fields, ranging from robotics to virtual reality (VR).

* This article was originally published here

US preschoolers less pudgy in latest sign of falling obesity

Preschoolers on government food aid have grown a little less pudgy, a U.S. study found, offering fresh evidence that previous signs of declining obesity rates weren't a fluke.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers identify compounds that starve melanoma cancer cells of energy

Researchers at Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University have found a possible counterpunch to the drug resistance of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

* This article was originally published here